Lawmakers to meet with Valley View bidders

Tuesday

May 22, 2012 at 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — One is a fast-growing chain of nursing homes that recently snatched up one of New York's county-owned nursing homes and since has bid on three others — apparently seeing potential profits in operations county officials have dismissed as financial drains.

BY CHRIS MCKENNA

GOSHEN — One is a fast-growing chain of nursing homes that recently snatched up one of New York's county-owned nursing homes and since has bid on three others — apparently seeing potential profits in operations county officials have dismissed as financial drains.

Another is a New Jersey-based investment firm that buys apartment complexes and other properties in financial distress and tries to turn them around. Its holdings include four nursing homes in Illinois and Massachusetts.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Orange County lawmakers will get a chance to meet and question representatives of these businesses and two others that have offered to buy the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation, a 360-bed facility that has been in county hands since 1831.

The interviews, which are taking place behind closed doors, were scheduled last week after legislators complained they were being steered toward a June 7 vote with only limited information about the four offers. Copies of the proposals have since been made available to each of them.

County officials have refused to make public any information about the offers. Their request for proposals set a minimum price of $18 million.

The bidder with the most extensive involvement in the nursing-home industry is the Bronx-based Centers for Specialty Care Group. According to its website, it now owns and operates 21 nursing homes and rehabilitation centers in New York and New Jersey, including three in Rockland County.

Among the firm's most recent acquisitions is a nursing home formerly owned by Fulton County, north of Albany. In recent months, the company also has bid on publicly owned facilities in Washington and Essex counties.

Another business seeking to buy Valley View is Paragon Management SNF, owned by Issac Laufer of Monsey. State Department of Health records indicate that Laufer holds ownership stakes in six nursing homes on Long Island and in Westchester County. As of 2010, Laufer also described himself as a director or executive director at five nursing homes, records show.

Lawmakers are scheduled to interview one bidder Tuesday and others Wednesday at meetings of the Health and Mental Health Committee, the panel that oversees Valley View. Initially, only members of an ad hoc committee of administration officials and lawmakers were expected to meet the prospective buyers and read the proposals.

It's unclear if the administration and legislative leaders still hope to seek approval of an offer on June 7 at the next full Legislature session. To do so would require calling another special meeting of the Health and Mental Health Committee so members could endorse a bid before then.

County Executive Ed Diana has cut off money for Valley View as of June 30, saying the county no longer can afford it. Lawmakers tried to extend the aid to a full year to allow more time for deliberation, but failed to muster enough votes to override Diana's veto.